To say that making your child eat cigarettes as punishment is abuse?

[Roostersmum2]

DH has just told me that his brother, about 14 at the time, was forced to eat cigarettes after being caught stealing them from their mums packet. He then added that his gran chimed in and said that she should have made him smoke the whole packet.

DH is virtually no contact with his mum for reasons that are nothing to do with this, but that is abuse isn't it?

This. Those sort of punishments were fairly common in those days. It didn't mean parents didn't love or care about their children, it was just a different time. Why stress about it now?

Because it is still stressful. One of the reasons I didn't habe children is that I would be a crap parent, vecause I don't know any other way to be a mother but destructive.

^This! I grew up in the 70s and 80s and punishments like this would have been seen as beyond the pale in the same way it is now.

Smacking was seen as acceptable (teachers used to smack in the classroom) but anything beyond that seriously wasn't.

The cane was still used to administer punishment, but only the headteacher did that. It was hardly ever used, it was more of a deterrent than anything else. I don't think I knew anyone who was caned.

A lot depended on where and how your were brought up, I started life in Yorkshire, our local council had banned corporal punishment, I then moved to Lancashire where they hadn't and where it was used. The main reason for getting or not getting the cane was the teacher, some used it a lot, others not at all.

One pf my primary school teachers believed a particullar boy had written in a book, he hadn't and wouldn't admit to it so he was asked every day and caned everyday, eventually the culprit cracked and owned up.

At high school only the head could use the cane but that was unusual (only the head using t, not it being used, in front of the entire school, because physical punishment needs some additional ritual humiliation). I left school in 1983.

I've had the soap on the mouth, the 'slaps', the chased round the house to hit me, force feeding because I didn't finish a meal...

One of the worst beatings I got was in '93 . Mum said she was kicking me out as a punishment(after hitting me for a bit) , and being 8 I was terrified and cried and begged her not to and put my foot in the door. She repeatedly slammed the door on my foot.

5 years later she went that route again, but I just put my coat on and went to leave. She dragged me back by my hair.

She didn't want me gone, she just wanted me to fear that she would and she could.

She wasn't physical often though, more emotional abuse,silent treatment and turning a blind eye when others (sexually)abused me.

Dad slapped me about 3 times my whole life (mostly at her goading), I don't see him as an abuser.

I do wonder if there was a certain degree of one-up-manship on the parents dealing out these extreme punishments out to show what strict parents they were. I think maybe a lot of people who didn’t really want children had them anyway because it was the done thing.

I used to hear other mums referring to washing their kids mouths out with soap and water as a punishment and even as I child I used to wonder why that was acceptable for parents to do while we were constantly being told not to drink the household cleaning liquid or we would die in horrible pain. There was a teacher who hated a boy in our class so much she used to tie him to the chair with skipping ropes and put a sign on his back saying I am a donkey please kick me and encouraged his classmates to kick him. Even at the time I knew it was wrong and that there was something very wrong with that teacher. Thank god these punishments are no longer socially acceptable.

Because it is still stressful. One of the reasons I didn't habe children is that I would be a crap parent, vecause I don't know any other way to be a mother but destructive.

Exactly. Plus for a lot of us these same parents are now grandparents who like to offer their 'pearls of wisdom' about child rearing and it can cause a lot of long buried resentments right come to the surface again.

These type of punishments aren't sadistic per se, in that it's very likely the person administering them didn't derive pleasure from them

Washing my half brother's mouth out, complete with an impression of how much he wriggled, kicked and screamed, is one of my mother's most joyful memories. She thinks it's hilarious.

Mind you, the story of how she 'accidentally' sliced another brother's hand open because she walloped him with the 'wrong' end of the carving knife when she spotted him reaching out to take a piece of chicken skin when sat at the table one Sunday was another. As was the happy day when he fell over at school and needed hospital treatment, because his hurting himself at school meant she couldn't possibly be abusing him - and that it made the social workers look stupid, so they left her alone/took him off the At Risk Register.

Don't attribute normal human emotions to people who do these kind of things. They don't fucking have them - they just know to say 'oh, I didn't enjoy it'

Can't believe that so many poster are saying that this was normal years ago and that as it was a long time ago, when things were different no one should bother about it now.

As I said in my pp I grew up in the 50s and these sort of punishments were certainly not 'normal' in my family; we weren't even smacked, and smacking was pretty normal in those days. So no not everyone abused their children like that.

And it was abuse, plain and simple. Doesn't matter if a lot of people did it or not, it's still abuse.

People were hanged for stealing many years ago, does the fact that it was done a long time ago make it okay.

Children were sent down mines and into factories and frequently died horrible deaths but clearly to some people it was fine as it was a long time ago.

People kept slaves many years ago, does the fact that it happened a long time ago make it all right?

Abuse is abuse whenever it happened and given that people are on here talking about some of the terrible things that happened to them at the hands of their parents then clearly these things didn't happen that long ago.

People should talk about it. If you knew your neighbour was ill treating their child, would the people dismissing it on this thread dismiss it in the same way because it's happening at the end of the street; far enough away to not affect them.

These sort of things are still going on today, in your neighbourhood, in your street and all the time people don't talk about it and pretend it isn't happening and didn't happen in the past, it will go on happening.

A fellow mum friend said she squirted washing up liquid into her child’s mouth to punish them for swearing.

She had to be told that it was poisonous and was quite taken aback that we didn’t punish our children the same way.

Should say that was about 2007

Wow.. there are actually people in this thread justifying this sort of abuse, and thinking its acceptable 'because it worked'.

If you don't understand learning theory, please refrain from having children?

A punishment is something that reduces the frequency of the behaviour it immediately follows.

An aversive is something the subject finds unpleasant for whatever reason and wishes to avoid.

Forcing a child to eat cigarettes is only a punishment if it a/ immediately follows being discovered smoking, and b/reduces the frequency of that behaviour ie the child stops smoking.

If it doesn't work it wasn't actually a punishment, it was just a horrible thing, an aversive. If you repeatedly use aversives that don't work then that's just abusive.

However just because an aversive or punishment appears to work does not justify its use!

I could prevent your child from doing anything wrong ever again, by shooting them dead. It would work, but it wouldn't be acceptable now would it?

If your chosen punishment has unwanted side effects - for example, instead of stopping smoking the kid just hides to smoke, instead of stealing cigs, the kid starts to steal money to buy cigs, instead of stealing your ciggies they steal grandmas..... then it wasn't effective was it?

Punishments and particularly the use of aversives will almost always carry 'fall out' risk - kid might stop smoking, but also might never trust you again. Hurrah, kid stops smoking but leaves home at 16 never speaks to you again.

Most of the punishments I read about people using on here are wholly ineffective, highly likely to cause further problems and also likely to damage the relationship between parent and child.

Some of them aren't punishments at all, they are revenge. They are an adult lashing out at a child in a way most calculated to hurt them.

Btw, forcing a child to eat or smoke cigarettes is a great way to give the kid nicotine poisoning, and of COURSE we should talk about this stuff, otherwise how will the folk who think its ok ever discover it isn't?

Well I just had a massive argument with mum following this thread. Guess she picked the wrong day to keep banging on about what a horrible child I was and how she's scarred by it. So I kinda blew up and told her if she wants to talk about scars we'll talk about scars.

Her arguments in no particular order

It was a different time
She is of a different generation
She had traumas, I didn't because it was nothing compared to hers
She doesn't remember ,it didn't happen
She was stressed because of work ,running a house etc

Very similar to some of the replies on here.

Exactly Widdlindiddlin, most punishments are 'I'll show you' from the adult.

@PrincessConsueIaBananaHammock
Well done for standing up for yourself. It’s not easy. You didn’t deserve what happened to you, and I’m truly sorry it did.
I hope you aren’t too upset from your phone call.
@pigsDOfly
Thank you for your post.

Somewhat of a derailment here, but I was thinking today of when I started menstruating, at the age of 11. I had a rudimentary grasp of the facts but my mother very rarely bought sanitary products. She’d maybe buy me one packet every 6 months, and when I asked for more I was told they were expensive and/or to buy them from my pocket money (which was fairly meagre). My parents weren’t poor, they would have well been able to afford these items for me. But I remember going around with loo paper stuffed in my underwear and hoping it wouldn’t fall out. And then my mother would get cross if my clothes or sheets were stained. I never understood why she wouldn’t just buy pads for me. I think it was some sort of misogyny as when my older brother developed bad skin and needed medicated soap no expense was spared and they actually imported some from Germany, so it certainly wasn’t a money issue.

Anyway, I just wanted to vent about that. It wasn’t a physical abuse issue but I do think it was neglectful and therefore abusive.

Definitely abusive, sammy. I can’t think of any justifiable reason to do that except for extreme poverty. It’s not even absent mindedness as you kept asking. Have you ever had it out with her?

Wonder if I knew him? I remember being at school and this lad came in and he started throwing up every here and all that come up was cigarette butts it was awful he told the teacher his mom made him eat them I will never forget it.
I don't think anything happened this is going back 18 years or so things were different then but no I would never do this to my kids it's disgusting

@sammylady37 that is abusive it's with holding and that's abuse I feel bad for you that this happened puberty is hard enough isn't it.

@CecilyP no, I’ve never challenged her on it. I had kinda forgotten it until today tbh, don’t know why it popped into my head. I do remember about 20 years ago or so she developed some incontinence and was looking for products to help with that and she asked my advice- I was an adult then and felt so so resentful that she was now coming to me for advice on this issue when she had left me floundering as a young girl. But I just gritted my teeth and got on with it. She’s extremely elderly now, widowed and rather pitiful now so I’m not going to bring it up with her at this stage.

@maria860 yes, it’s a hard enough time as it is. I remember a classmate of mine started her periods around the same time and we were talking about them. Her mother was in hospital at the time and was in for months, after very complicated surgery and follow up treatment, and she had been proactive, knowing that her daughter was likely to start soon, and had contacted our teacher (who was a friend of the girls mother anyway) and asked her to buy a variety of packs of pads, just in case. I was so so jealous of that girl.

People who say being smacked as a child never did them any harm are wrong. They have been taught that hitting people is acceptable.

@PrincessConsueIaBananaHammock

Have you ever read this?

^That didn't happen.
And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
And if it was, that's not a big deal.
And if it is, it is not my fault.
And if it was, I didn't mean it.
And if I did.
You deserved it.^

People who say being smacked as a child never did them any harm are wrong. They have been taught that hitting people is acceptable.

This, 100%.

I find it really interesting to hear others thoughts on these things as I experienced many of them growing up in the 70s..
• didn’t eat your meal, it would be returned to you at the next sitting,
• swear or back chat... soap in the mouth
• miss your grades or misbehave... wooden spoon, garden cane, once a walking stick plus a few slaps around the head or for the worst offences, the above from my mother and then sent to your room with no evening meal to await my fathers return wherein he would take off his belt and remind us to not mess our mother about. Mother used to make us go and get the implements too, whilst she waited in stony silence. The longer she waited, the worse the punishment. She used to say she wasn’t going to ruin her manicure because we couldn’t do as we were told.

• anything not put in its place went straight in the bin, irrespective of its value or importance. No one dared leave school books on the kitchen table for example or they would need to explain at school why they no longer had them...
•stole a smoke - made to finish the packet, not so much with the whisky (it was the good stuff, single malt). We just couldn’t sit or lay on our back for about a fortnight after pinching some of that.
• hair cut short (really short) at home as it was too much bother otherwise.

We never really saw it as anything other than normal.

I haven’t ever raised a hand to my children and tried to create a more inclusive family with them. They wander in and out of my bedroom too (my parents room was entirely off limits). I do wonder how much of my OCD stems from those experiences. I spent my teenage years full of pent up rage, which led to some self destructive behaviour that was passed off a rebellion. “She’s always been a handful etc”. I do wonder now how common that kind of approach to parenting really was !

for all the people on this thread who have disclosed some really awful abuse. It wasn't OK and it wasn't your fault.

@Fanthorpe nope, but funnily enough I wrote/said something similar when talking about abuse and abusers in general. On FWR I think.

So simple but so true.

I know someone, a distant relative of an ex, who still washes her kids mouths with soap for swearing.